I want to fall in love again and again;
With the anticipation of constancy
Forming butterflies with little wings
Before they fly off, leaving pits.

I want to gaze into many different sets of eyes;
That one with crinkles at the corner,
Others maybe blue or green,
And only mine remain.

I think I’d like to recycle tragedy and redemption,
To forever be seen for the first time,
To constantly be revealing my secrets
And be the worship of a man.

I should like this world to be a place
Where we agree to fall in and then out,
With a mutual parting of ways
Once the butterflies fly away.

Red words in black ink,
Seductive kisses never leave
The lips of thorny roses,
Full bordeux mouth prints,
Desire for hell's angels
Unrequited, as is planned,
Pain is the ultimate man,
Hands don't approach,
Sight is as intimate as ***,
Whispers of agony,
Enjoyable as only love could be.

I'm not sick,
Love is.
With it's cruel tricks
And double vision.

Love is one- way,
A mirror maze,
It takes your mind
To a point of no return.

Love is pain
Painted pink;
Killing chemicals
Enter your bloodstream.

Love likes triangles,
Scattering ice cracks;
Master of illusions
And puppets.

I'm not lovesick--
Love is.

Most gentle of souls,
Kindred of old,
Who raised me up.
In dreams you linger,
And in the mirror,
And in every shade of red hair.
Though at the end
Shriveled and frail
Strength did not fail.
A story kept alive in Esthers,
What is past
Has not passed.

There is a bubble shooting out of my hand,
And it's made of plastic hurt and loathing,
And it's as see- through as I am,
And it grows and grows and covers you,
All of you, and your loudness, your rudeness, your obnoxiousness,
Your stinky cloud of perfume and ridiculous eyeliner,
And your burnt hair and bitchiness and stupidity,
And now you're inside of it,
And it's shrinking and shrinking and making you as small as you seem,
The size of your brain,
And you're tiny next to me.

Hold my hand, I feel
like we're jumping off a cliff,
now we know it's real,
and what can happen if

you hold me tight
and don't let go
at least not 'till
the moon stops being full;

there was a fog
but now it's clear
and it's quite obvious,
to me over this beer

we're sharing something
that if lost cannot be
found and it's dumbfounding
how you lose me

in a place where only you can go,
when you pick up my hand,
we drop our guards down low
enough to finally understand

all the passion in a kiss
in a moonlit country night
with barely any lights on in this
town that's never felt so right.

Sometimes in life, a preference
Is but the lesser of two evils,
Like choosing ***** or Gemorah;
And sometimes it is a sacrifice,
As palpable as Abraham and Isaac's.
Sometimes choosing means
Standing by the roadside
With your thumb straight out,
Your heart a wide open chasm
To swallow the sinner in you whole,
And blank eyes screaming "I don't know".
Sometimes you're a Tamar,
And people, bless their hearts,
Think you're a Sara or Rebecca
And you just feel like a big ol' Delilah.
Sometimes your face feels like the Red Sea,
Only the dry land is wet with snot,
And sometimes despite it all,
You raise your hands up in the air
And the sun stands still
In the valley of Refaim or Aijalon.
Sometimes your Temple burns,
You realize your body is the loot
And you barely recognize the ornaments.
But even when you're exiled
In the solitude of your own mind,
There remains the promise of redemption,
And whether Messianic or romantic,
You must have faith in the intervention
That will guide you towards the future from Isaiah.

If it shames you,
If it shocks you,
If no one ever cared enough
To brave it through for you,
If that's not how it was done-
                                  Then run.
Shirk responsibilities,
Hold on to old hostilities,
Ensure a future
For your daughter
Full of mistakes you've already made.
             Do not grace her with faith,
Do not bestow your care upon her-
Let her think it was never there.
Cigarettes, alcohol,
                   Heartache, adolescence
Just ******* and
                  Regular flirtations and relationships-
Don't tell her to say no.
Just make sure she knows
                  They're unforgivable, all of them;
(Make sure she knows both shades that life can offer,
Raise her awareness of the wonderful choice
Between white and black.)
                 Fabricate the pretense that in this 21st century
                 She'll never come across them, not once.
Tell her that safe *** is not
Something she should know about
Because she will just not do it
                               Ever, period
And experimentation with substances and heck,
Even with people, are crimes
That only criminals commit.

And she will learn despite you.
And she will do things to spite you,
And one day, she'll grow old enough to hate you
And she won't care or feel the need
To explain her side of things
Because she will find happiness in her way
And she will have survived long enough
To have learned how to cut you from her heart.
And she won't even have to see you,
And the day will come
When you've become
Just a subject of her art.

They've just finished telling me
About how they think that a person
Should only be considered an immigrant
(Academically) for her first five years instead
Of the ten that I said I wish were twenty, and they
Manipulate my words the time that I made the mistake
Of telling them that I feel like my personality belongs, and
I turn around and blink and swallow hard and the teacher hands
Out our new textbooks and through my blurry eyes I write my name
Inside the cover and I look down and I rush out of the room to write this when
I realize that I've written my full, god- given name beautifully, neatly-- in English.

It's looming over me,
with its gaping maw
full of sadistic
jagged teeth,
each one a stab to my
already itty- bitty
sense of security-
and did I mention they gleam?
Yes, I can see myself
and my flaws
and my doubts,
staring at me
from the mouth
of the beast,
my beast,
the beast that lives
within the black part
of my soul.

I stand right there,
on the precipice
threatening
to devour
me alive.
I balance on the eggshell teeth,
on my bleeding toes,
my poor throat
raw from sobbing.

But I don't back away,
though I could try
to struggle against
the evil magnetism,
dark and alluring,
calling to me from
the depths of my sorrow.

I don't fight it
because the beast
knows something
I don't presume to,
and heaven knows
I can't resist logic.

Tan,
Not too big,
Not perfectly slim,
My suitcase has a rainbow- colored ribbon.

My suitcase is pretty,
It's delicate, crafted carefully,
Blemished and recalling antiquity.

My suitcase has faded stickers on it,
Dirt and stains and scars,
My suitcase is clearly well- traveled,
Adding to its charm.
The moment I saw my suitcase
I knew it'd be my friend,
And its handle felt like a mold
Of my small, custom- made hand.

Back home
I shower
And my eyes
Don't blink as they're lined
Along with my mouth
And usually I don't do that
But some lines on my face need to be redefined
Like the ocean eroded them
Just washed them away
And I'm dressed in blue and green
And in my ears are pearls--
Because I'm not afraid of the sea,
It was my fault it almost killed me
And the person I hold dearest.

That night, it was scrawled in silver dust into the stars,
to brand our names into the sky.

That night, our story was written in the indelible ink of the gods,
and my favorite lipstick, and sealed with an immortal kiss.

That night, we came to life, with eyes that were able to tear
and hearts that could suddenly pump our lives' essence with renewed fervor.

That night, a romantic with an angel's smile
and a siren with a history of self- delusion became one, never to part.

That night, we fell in love.

She got a fish.
Some random person
Handed her a goldfish
In a bag
And she kept it.

And then she got another one,
To keep the first one company.
She bought them a tank,
And pebbles,
And a plastic plant.
And I feel stupid because
I thought we were dirt poor.
I thought she was broke enough
To tell me my dad has to support me,
Because that's what she's been saying.

She's got plants, too.
Five balconies,
And flowers
And herbs.

So now she's got fish to feed
And plants to prune and water,
When I'm in therapy
And I get my own dinner
And I've been hung out to dry since I was twelve.

God forbid her fish should swim alone,
Or her plants beg her for attention,
She'll love them, care as if they were her own,
And I'll cry myself to sleep again.

Unless their novelty will fade.
Unless slowly, she'll be too busy for them, too.
Unless they won't be her babies anymore.
Until they die and wither as most neglected things do.

After all, one turns to the beginning.
What questions should be asked?
Can answers truly have no meaning?
A person bleeding tears will end up dry,
Indifference and uncaring masked;
That is the price paid by those who cry.

Some children never grow,
Born in fear and blood and hate.
Still, some profess to know
The secrets that God didn't even make,
Horrors even He did not create--
Such as hearts that will never bend or break.

What was is gone,
There's no more music on my tongue,
The fire that was there's gone out.

My pen's too full to lift,
There are only tears within,
And all the aged pages won't open.

There are only crude summations
Of disappointed expectations,
No curiosity left for questions.

Shards of the past blowing in the wind,
With fragments of an anthem
And long- forgotten hymns.

Insatiable fatigue,
Irrational though it seems,
Drowns all conscious thought in a sleeping sea.

What was is no more,
I've forgotten all the notes
On that far- away, hazy, unreachable shore.

You think you're the better writer with
         Your indentations,
Arrogant alliteration,
Games of Rhymation;
When You Capitalize For No Good Reason
OR TYPE IN ALL CAPS;
When you type in italic just because you can;
With thy ineffectual employment of Shakespearean formulation
Or elongated conveyance of your articulation,
                                        When you type in
                                             funny patterns to
                                        better express the  
                                             thoughtfulness and
                                        superiority behind the gemstone
                                                   artist,
And, all- your; meaningful, strategically placed' punctuation!
And perpisfuly mispled wurds bcuz yur so ironic,
And your cryptic title that's meant to come off as genius.
Dylan could crack a skull without a hammer.

Words flow like wine,
From depths that rival the ocean's heart.
Colored shades of blue and red,
The hues of love and passion,
No longer unrequited, but-
Suppose the rainbow turns shades of grey,
And the sweet wine becomes ashes?
Suppose seas dry into mere lakes?
Suppose the love becomes indifference,
And the passion turns to lust and is all that remains?
Suppose our words run out or are written on a different page?

I was in love with another, once,
The yellow of the rainbow seemed like gold.
The wine that made us heady tasted like Moscato,
And our love burned urgent like a fire that never had a chance to hold.
It burned out, extinguished
By not a lake, but just a puddle,
And we were left two bodies, unconnected
By the faintest common thoughts, and our souls seemed strangers.
I then saw you, and rediscovered
What I'd forgotten long ago,
But suppose what brought us two together
Happens to us, with someones other?

You're talking
and talking
and talking
and talking
and everything I said
before you talked
was a preview for you
to start talking
and talking
and talking
your mouth off-
just
shut
up.

I left the room today
With the two chairs,
And the one with its back to the window
Will remain occupied for as long as she rents the space,
Kept company by an invisible jar.

It is a jar that was born with me,
That shared my mother's womb,
And like me, it has grown
Over time and become its own.

A few years ago it outgrew me
And I couldn't carry it anymore,
And so she took it from me and
Set it down on her office floor.

My chest constricts when I try to describe
The contents of this container of mine,
And I'm at a loss for words, or strength, or light.

Suffice it to say that if it shattered
And my sanity had a throat- it would be slit
By such monsters as memory,
Despair, depression and other demons.

They remain there, confined, restrained,
By perseverance, honesty and faith,
By openness, communication and vulnerability,
And the choice of right from wrong.

Threatening me no longer- If
I learn from mistakes, both past and future, If
I choose to do what's good and not only what's easy, If
I choose to surf the waves that sometimes overcome me.

Today I left the room with the two chairs
And a guide, a mentor and a friend
Who helped refine the tools to find myself,
And sift through my Pandora's cookie jar.

I loved you, once,
And never thought
The paper would read your name.

I wronged you twice,
I lied, I thought I’d find
A better man.

You all went off to war,
On foot, or encased in metal, or in air.

There thrice were years,
Each time I prayed another safe.

All four lovers, tall and short,
Happy at last or forever alone,

It was for me they’d have laid down lives,
And I never thought I’d cry.

It will be a gentleman's agreement
and a lady's choice.
There will be secrets whispered
and riddles that night;
no knees will bend,
and only silver tears will be shed.
There will be a sparkling rock
and it will witness this
from two billion miles away.
In the dark of a mid- August night,
the world will breathe for us.
Words will be too loud
and love will be too sweet.
We'll balance, existing,
like we've known nothing but simply being.
There will be no questions,
no need for answers;
there will be no time forever.

A name,
A face,
More ripples
In the lake.

I've never seen this man,
But I'll never be the same.
I am not the faintest ripple,
Though we've never met,

Though we're only close
In the second degree, if that;
Though I might sleep tonight
While others won't.

Those outermost waves
Are the ones for whom
He is just part of a number
Of casualties in the Middle East.

The advantages of a pseudonym
Are reasons to write under a real name,
For to even those who know me
I am anonymous

Buzzing in my fluffy socks,
Skipping through school in my PJ pants,
Being locked up in a cozy box.
Beaming, grumbling about the ****** weather,
Pink becomes my color, and I look best when
Dripping, and grinning from ear to ear.
"*******, it got my shoes!"
Rain, Rain, come to stay,
And if I ever have a kid, maybe I'll name him for you.

The banks have overflowed,
Winter has come after an autumn
Of months, and a summer of years.
Not an inch of footing for the flooding-
Take the moral high road.

Looking for love
Is like waving your hand
Through the stardust above,
Expecting contact.

Walk through it-
It sparkles in your hair;
It sticks to your skin-
You think it's really there.

It's a life of chasing vapor
Whose existence you can't prove.
The realization will settle
And eventually, so will you.

And you will always yearn.
Your heart will always burn
With a flame you haven't found,
And you've not the sense to be earthbound.

Your hand and your eyes
Will remain in the sky
And there they'll remain,
While your heart plummets again.

I thirst for words,
A thirst you have begun to quench.
It is a need of the literate, I suppose,
To inspire romantic prose.
A machine gun has proven to not be enough,
Only a pen has sufficed to capture my love-
A man who is man in all the right ways,
Who tugs at my heart in all the right places.

I covet an equal,
In content and not just circumstance.
It is the dream of the different, I think,
To desire the sameness a lover can bring.
The opposite tried, I must now turn to kindred,
As an audacious adventurer long last made timid-
I give myself unto this writer's loving,
That he may know just how to love me.

Prayer is a thought,
                a frisson,
                 a song,
                 a sob.

Prayer can be all that one is,
All that one aspires to be,
It can be all that one has lost,
The last thing that one has to give.

True prayer is internal,
Prayer is like a snowflake,
Prayer is not printed
Words on a page.

Prayer is not always cathartic.
Prayer is angry. Prayer is hopelessness.
Prayer is more often than not
A last resort born of desperation.

Prayer uttered daily, commanded by a man,
Is prayer stripped of meaning, desecrated,
A holy word on a holy plane
Made mundane.

Don't let me scare you.
I'm an ant beside a tree,
And if you don't recognize
The look in my eyes,
It's because you're used
To seeing me happy.
All the words engraved
In pencil on my bedroom wall,
Glittering silver
In every corner of my room,
My mind's forgotten how to read,
How to understand the things
Known previously, effortlessly.
I've become the paint,
Flaking off the wall;
The paper plane
That didn't quite take off;
The dog chasing its own tail,
Too innocent to ever give it up.
I've become the initials in your locker,
Alien, but familiar with age;
The poem on the internet,
The rebel stupid sage.
But I'm also all the things that never change,
You know my face, my handwriting, my name,
And you know my lifeline
Better than yourself--
So don't let me scare you.

I've never seen a shooting star.
The city lights are way too bright,
But should they dim somehow,
I'll wish for words to never fail.

He said he'd take me out to see
A shooting star this summer,
And when he doubtless keeps his word,
I'll wish him peace of mind.

I like the way his voice snags on itself
when he's tired.

He sees the world in shades of green and brown and blue,
tinted through the eyes he sees it through.

He thinks, but can't put into words--
I like that I'm his self- expression, and
when there's an overflow of mine,
I like that I don't need to write them down for him to read them on my face.

It's a little lonely and a little nice
that I only feel like me when he looks at me,
and I like that he's looking right through what I see.

I like that he'll never, ever have had a broken heart
and I like that he glued shut the cracks in mine,
making it his creation, to know and feel at will.

I like that our color is white, the color of angel wings,
that things that would be dark if done with anyone else
are real because we're us, are pure, are holy.

There is a spectrum of emotion wider than the world
and only he could make me run that length in a day,
and sometimes I like that, and sometimes I lie and say I don't.

Yin and yang, like sun on waves,
with fights on the dark side of the moon,
with souls two big for one person to contain,
that's why we share them-- so there are two.

It hurt
When our souls were ripped apart;
We were made as one.

The agony has echoed through my life
Of the moment when the sun hit my eyes
And you were torn from me
For what has felt like a lifetime,

Of when they announced our arrivals
To two sets of parents
And we were taken home in different cities,

And we were ripped from each other
From loving darkness to blinding, aching light,
Left to wander
Until we might find
Each other again.

I see a spark
In my mind's eye;
The spark melds two
And once lit never goes away.

A spark so bright it leaves no choice
Or room to roam love's other corridors,
Its magnetic pull sufficient
To never want to let it die.

I see a spark,
Just in my mind;
That I think I once saw with my eyes,
And now I think that I've lost sight.

I see a spark with someone new,
Illusion or delusion of grandeur?
Make new friends? Keep the old?
Prospecting when I've found the gold?

I don't know you but I speak for you.
You are the hands
That hold steady my guns,
and my legs
To crouch, attack and run;
You are my wings
With which to fly at my enemy,
And my aimed artillery,
That I may strike him heavily;
You are my stomach
To crawl on the sand,
You are everything but our back-
That's what I am.

We were at war,
and now we're not.
We normal folk
don't hear sirens anymore-
but I know our boys
will always hear the booms.

We were at war,
it was the comma
in a sentence that goes on.
It's difficult to realize
that some of our big family
didn't pick up where they left off,
and some didn't pick up at all.

You,
her,
him,
they,
God, the weather;
hell, not me.

We're jagged edges,
Some bits of us eroded over time,
We dance around cliff ends and ledges;
Play with fire, love and ice and rhyme,
We are writers,
We give the words their souls because our eyes
Betray our inner fighters,
Take away our pens and realize-
That children of the dawn
Are born into the darkest black of night;
And cynics can be lovers,
And only those who break can prove their might,
Let’s try,
Let’s meet and fall apart
Because you and I
Are like two pieces of a heart.

He wasn't anything.
He wasn't white.
He wasn't black
Or brown
Or peach
Or tangerine.
He could have been green.
Was he Asian?
Middle Eastern?
Did he wear a kippah,
A keffiyeh?

He wasn't anything.
I bet he didn't even
Have a belly button.
He came before the race.
He was nothing,
He was
earth.

We wait at the same stop.
It's pouring, and we join the huddle of people
Keeping dry under the cold metal.
I expect her to get on one of the Arab bus lines,
Because she's an Arab.
That was racist and I smile to myself when
She gets on the 74 with me.
We end up jammed in the middle, standing face to face
In a sea of human waves, getting on, off, hustling.
There is an Ethiopian lady next to us with a baby strapped to her back.
I think the girl is wistful. I wonder if she's wondering about her future, like me.
Her makeup is better done than mine is and she looks sad.
I wonder what secrets lie beneath her elegantly obscured body.
I remember when I was Orthodox- we were parallel lines.
I sneak a look at her hijab. I wonder if she looks at my hair.
I notice two rings, a diamond and a gold, on her left hand.
She follows my gaze, twitches her fingers nervously and moves her hand.
I wonder how he treats her. Is she afraid of him? Is she sad?
She looks sad. I want to ask her what's wrong.
Does she speak Hebrew? Maybe. Probably not. Maybe.
I want to at least meet her eyes and smile,
So she knows someone noticed,
But my eyes flit and dart away every time I try,
And all I can see is the hate that's been wedged between us since the 20's.
She can't be much older than me, I think as she takes out an Iphone
In a bright pink case, a twin to the one I'd checked in its turquoise case
About 30 seconds ago. We get off at the same stop.
She waits for a transfer and I start walking to school.
I will never see her again, but I hope that maybe our future daughters
Will be able to smile at each other on a crowded bus, and maybe even be friends.

Right, left, full circles-
He was just ***** trained!
Negotiating
Only how long it will take
To get back to the start.

Deaf open minds,
"I'll do it if he does."
Would a lollipop make you feel better?

Science and progress
Vying with unchanging
Human nature
For position of
Kindergarten teacher.

Everyone know's they're right for sure.
They tell their friends,
"Go on, shut him up before he speaks!"
"You both say he started it? Time- out,
Both of you go talk it out
Over my teacher's table,
And if you **** each other
On your way there,
I'll look the other way."
After all, death in the name
Of righteousness is sacred,
And not to be mocked.
To teachers with 6/6 vision, sometimes
Blindness is a gift-
"There's no wrong, and no right.
Hug it out, avoid a fight."
(Kicking under the table.)
Hopefully, the explosion will miss her.

Where there are people,
There will be the same stories-
The world is a huge daycare center.

She dreamed of a stage
That was bigger than the world.
A stage big enough for all her fears,
High up enough for all her tears
To flow down, down, down.

She dreamed of a place
That could stand her sparkle,
That would understand
The words in her heart
And the silences between them.

She played, she sang,
She wrote away,
And never told a soul.
No, she never dared to hope-
She only dreamed.

And she'd watch people turn to stars,
At home, and on Hollywood Boulevard,
And her world was dark,
Inside herself
And she woke up every morning.

And her dreams were what kept her going,
And the ink that was her tears just kept flowing,
And when her family fell apart,
And when a "Crack!" came from her heart,
She'd put her earbuds in.

And she lived knowing
That one day the music would die,
That that sparkle in her eyes
Would dull for good,
And that she'd open her mouth and just rasp.

And every day
Her dream slipped farther away,
And the salt-waterline that came from her eyes
Kept growing and rising to meet her,
And she didn't know who would save her.

Today if anyone looked for her,
They would see a pair of hands above the water
Outstretched, protecting a big purple folder,
From a big puddle of pain and broken notes,
And maybe then they'd find her.

Deception or protection?
Is it a lie to deny
Or omit a commitment
Of the romantic kind?

To claim it's for his sake
Is a godly statement I won't make.
I've no hold over lives of men,
Yet by my choice I've changed one again.

Who by heartbreak? Who by betrayal?
Who by the murderous unfaithful?
It seems more deaths occur in the virtual
Than by those weapons wielded by the literal.

Who by knives in the front and back,
Who by fire, famine, plague, animal attack,
Who by crime, who on time, who during youth,
Who by abuse, who by noose- and who by truth?

The Brits were twits in '29,
I reckon mandates were not their cup of tea.
I suppose silence speaks louder than a noose,
And that as long as one is civilized, we may agree to disagree.

Enemies share common grounds-
Blood to be spilled, one pair apiece of shoes,
Salaam, shalom, auf wiedersein, tootleoo.

I'm the kind of girl who glows.
I've never admitted it
Or said or written it,
But I've always known.

I walk down the street,
And people look at me,
And I don't know why,
But it's not because I'm pretty.

I know how to shine,
It's an innate talent of mine.
I sparkle, and when I do,
The people around me sparkle too.

People see what I want them to,
And they all say I'll go far,
And it's not that that's not true-
In fact, I suppose I'm a star.

But the thing about stars
Is that they're lucky and bright
But there's lots more to them
Than being a graceful sight.

Stars hold themselves together,
And they're born with their deaths,
And you'll see them forever,
Long after their last breaths.

Stars light our nights from far away,
And they're never what they seem,
They're lonely, sad, strange and alien,
Infinite, vaporous beings.

Yes, I'm a star,
For all the reasons above,
No one sees beyond my light,
And almost none know the illusion of my love.

I have rebuilt the temple.
I sense its arches supporting my weight,
Grace and power surging through my core.
I have rebuilt the temple,
A holy of holies resides in my soul,
A place of prayer as it unfolds--
I pray for Him to lend me sight through open ears.
I have rebuilt the temple,
Reignited each sacrifice of old--
No longer severed grace gone to waste,
No longer inside me a contradiction of faiths,
Freedom and beauty rise now from my flames.
I have rebuilt the temple,
Though its shell still stands--
A strip of land,
Desolate and serene.
I have rebuilt the temple,
For it had to be burned,
It had to be cleansed,
It had to be purged.
Its gold's destiny was to ignite
And it indeed was set alight,
Its flames, long extinguished,
Consume my mind in fright.
I rebuilt the temple,
Its sacrifices' horns stood sentinel,
While we awaited their blast
And paid cold cash in exchange for soiled souls.
I have rebuilt the temple,
Adorning it with bands of faith
And simple beauty and lights with which
To guide in sunny nights.
I have rebuilt the temple,
I break bread in its empty halls
And drink immortal wine
And answer the angel when he calls,
In the midst of his eternal watch
Over a box of long- forgotten treasures.
We have rebuilt our temples,
Woman to woman, keep my words,
Let none flow from your lips
To reach undeserving ears,
For a woman's wisdom is her might.
I have rebuilt this temple in my heart,
Its incense fills the corners of my soul,
The holy altar stands ***** within my mind,
And when I die it still will stand and does forever glory.